thanks

to everyone who has been looking at my humble blog.  I now have over 2000 page views.

That's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I really appreciate the interest.

Hopefully you all find something of interest enough to keep you coming back
.

Purple Mini Quilt

I showed you this in my last post......

Well I have gotten around to finishing it and hanging it.  I even found the same fabric as the border (it was hiding on me).  I hand quilted it on the cross diagonal tot he blocks in a size 10 thread in white.  I think it looks quite nice.  I'd show you a pic but I can't find my camera cable to connect it to my pc.

I also took a pic of my mini gallery - I'd show you that too if I could.  I now have 5 mini quilts hanging on the wall.

This is what the gallery looked like

 before I added the purple one above, this one below....

and this one....

This last one has now been backed with plain white.  It hangs below the blue tumbling blocks.  The hexi one is between the tumbling blocks and the red centered cross one.  The purple one hangs above the tumbling blocks.

You'll just have to use your imagination!!

On another note, I agreed to help out Aussie Hero Quilts with some sewing.  Jan-Maree sent me 3 sets of blocks to put together into quilts.  Two need borders, but 1 doesn't.  I have put together the one without the borders.  I bought some wadding and I will get something for the backing too.  I will have a go at quilting these on my frame.  Nothing too flash - that's for sure since I have only ever done spot quilting on it before.  Spot quilting is my version of tying a quilt, just uses a sewing machine to do it.

I was looking at my list of things to finish the other day - I did remove some of them as they had been done - but not enough.  I keep letting other projects get in the way.  That's a bad habit to have.  It creates too many UFO's.  At least the craft room is looking a bit tidier.

Mini quilts group Swap

Yesterday I signed up to the yahoo group small talk quilts' mini quilt swap.  Should be some fun.  At the end of the month I will get paired up with someone else in the swap, exchange a few emails and them make them a mini quilt.  They will do the sme for me.  As most participants are from the USA I imagine that is where mine will also be from.  I notice that there a few ladies who are after something Civil War - I have no idea what that means for quilts, so if I get one of them I will have to do some research!! 

Yesterday was also JOY DAY so I made a mini for the March 2013 challenge.  The brief was to make a certain pattern in 'ugly' fabrics.  Since I couldn't be bothered going thru all of my fabrics to find different colours and I had my purple stash bag already out of storage I chose to use purples only - oh and with white.  I think I found some ugly fabrics in that bag.  This is them....

 

 

Once I started sewing I found I had only cut half the number of white I needed.  Silly me.  Oh well - back to the cutting board.  A few hours later and she's all done.  Lo and behold all cut up and together the mini quilt is actually quite nice - uglies and all.  It measures at around 17" square.

Now I still have to quilt it and bind it - though I'm not too sure which purple I used as the border as those I have seem to be a bit off colour.  I'm sure I'll find it.

I had bits left over when cutting the Half Square Triangles, so I made a mini mini quilt.  This will go with a doll to be sold at a Market Night I am going to in November.

Isn't it just the cutest??  It only measure 8.5" square.  I know it's a bit rough with seams not matching but Amish Sarah will love it (that's the name of the doll I have yet to make).  I hope she ends up going home with some lucky person.

Another Mini

all done and ready for hanging in my gallery.  It's a 1 1/4 inch hexi quilt, all hand pieced and hand quilted.  I've done a knife edge on it too.

It's only about 12" across - really cute - in lovely pale yet bright colours.

Now to pick which mini I do next.

Clean Up pt 2

OOHH  I can see the floor in the craft room - right up to the shelves now.

YAY!!!!  The youngest saw the romm and told me I had to keep it like that - this was whilst I was going thru the bags and bags of things that were in there.

I have 1 small bag for the thrift shop, another for a local kinder and a pile of things that I intend working on to get done.  I found an irish dancing dress I had started ages ago.  It only needs the lace appliqued on, then the side seams sewn, the sleeves set in and the lining attached.  Then it's onto ebay it goes.

Now to get off here and get cracking..

Mad for Mini's

Not the car - quilts of course.

Been looking at mini quilts, or doll quilts, that people in bloggersphere have been making and they have inspired me.  So much so that I have now finished 2 of them.

This first one I put together over our Xmas holiday.  I was working on a quilt and I had some left over diamonds.  In playing around with them I came up with this.....

It's tubling blocks, and i know my shading is not right, but I don't care.  It it all hand pieced and hand quilted.  The binding is machine sewn on and then hand finished off.

Then I did this one......

It took me only 1 weekend to put together (by machine) and then 2 nights to hand quilt it.  It's only my second foray into putting blocks on point.  Not sure I want to do that again.  This fabric really stretched and the sides are rahter gathered.  If I do on point settings I will have to make sure I remember to spray starch the triangles.

I have them hanging where no one me and hubby can see them - after all I am really the only one interested in them.  They are in the area to our wardbobe.

I can probably fit another 4 in here, depending on the sizes.

I have found a way to invisibly hang them too.  There's a product available for hanging pictures that uses velcro with sticky stuff on the back of it.  The idea is to peel off the cover paper to reveal the sticky stuff, stick one with the sticky side to the picture and another on the wall; and then press the two bits of velcro together.  The picture sits flat against the wall. 

Well I have sewn 1 bit of velcro the mini quilt, stuck the other bot of velcro to it, then peeled off the cover papaer to reveal the sticky side and pressed it to the wall.  With such light weight things, I doubt they will fall off the wall in a hurry.

I have 1 more mini to wad, back and quilt and then it will get added to the gallery.  I may even add the suffolk puff mini quilt I did before christmas.

Oh and something else I made so far this year - a double sized bedspread with pillow over flaps.  An elderly lady had my business card from when I did markets.   She rang whilst I was still away and asked if I would be interested in making some dolls and a quilt for her.  I thought why not - might earn me bit of extra cash.   So this is her 'quilt' using 95% of her fabrics.

I was testing it out on my queen sized bed to make sure the skirt was not too long - cat liked it.

I think she thought I had made up the bed just for her.

I was surprised by how much fabric it took to make this.  The lady gave me 22 fat 1/4's to start with.  I had to phone her to get more; she gave me 15.  And then I still had to raid my stash for the final 20 blocks.  It now sits proudly on the lady's bed, fits well I think too.  The skirt is perhaps a hem too long - but she's happy.  Now I wait for her phone call about the dolls she wanted.  I have seen the patterns - nothing too troubling to make.

Clean up

Over the past few days/weeks I havee been going thru some of my craft magazines and seeing what's in them that still appeals to me.  There were patchwork ones, painting ones, scrapbook ones, general craft ones - around 280 of them all stored in a purpose built shelving unit by our back door.

They weren't in the way or taking up space, they just weren't being read or used.

So, yesterday I had finished going thru all of these and I took those I did not want to my local thrift store (along with 1 box of shoes and 3 bags of clothes that belonged to my youngest).

I now have around 70 magazines with projects in them that still inspire me to make them.  There's some quilts and wall hangings, some cloth dolls and some bears.  Each page is tagged (well dog eared actually) so I know which project caught my interest.

When doing this, the ones I kept were not projects I just liked, but rather ones I could see me actually making some time in the future.  The ones I just liked I ummed and ahhed over before deciding, yes I like them but not enough to make.

I sill have a whole bookcase full of magazines in my craft room to go thru and I am fairly certain there's a heap in the wardrobe too.  But they are for another time.

This is all part of my attempt to not be a hoarder, to get rid of unnecessary things, to simplify my life.

I had a friend come over on Sunday - on the table were the piles of mags waiting to go.  I asked her if she wanted to go thru them.  She has far more restraint than I do and said "No, I have a large pile myself and should probably do the same". 

I still have to go thru, ruthlessly I might add, a number of bags in front of the shelves in the craft room.  The idea of the shelves is that everything I have is on them, not on the floor in front of them.  And then there's in the wardrobe.  Now that school and kinder is back I at least have a suitable place to donate them to.  I just have to go thru it all..........